LEXINGTON, S.C. — A young girl in Lexington is proving her spirit can't be broken.
Karsyn Matthews is battling stomach cancer, but it's her attitude that has made her an internet sensation.
Matthews is a 9-year-old with a smile that shines just about as bright as our sunshine here in the Midlands.
She's captivated the hearts of thousands of people through her TikTok videos that have gone viral and through the updates her mom shares on Facebook.
"They tell me that I'm funny and stuff like that and that I need to keep going," Matthews said. "It makes me feel happy that people are by my side and I'm not by myself ... It's nice to know it's bringing joy to people."
This rockstar cancer fighter living in Lexington has a rare form of stomach cancer that went about a year unchecked by doctors.
Karsyn's mom Jessica tells News 19 they wrote it off as a digestion problem until an MRI this year finally showed something different.
"They told me she had something called desmoplastic small round cell tumor and it is very very rare. Like less than five people in the United States have this type of cancer and it has a very very low survival rate, which off the top scared me. Cancer is scary by itself, so just being told that your 9-year-old has that type of disease is very very scary," Jessica Walker, Karsyn's mom said.
Her mom explains after three rounds of chemo earlier this year, Karsyn was doing well and sent home, but then a few days later, Karsyn caught pneumonia and MRSA, a type of staph infection.
Through it all, Karsyn has kept smiling though.
"She's just so strong. She cares more about if I'm okay than if she's okay like now," Walker said.
Karsyn's been home since early April and is hoping she can go to a Cincinnati hospital in a few weeks for a specialized cancer surgery, so she can be rid of this disease for good and keep on smiling through life.
If you'd like to donate to Karsyn's medical costs for the surgery, click here.